WIGAN MEETING HOUSE

Quaker Beliefs

Our spiritual experience leads us to see something sacred in each individual person. As George Fox, our founder, in the seventeenth century wrote, we “try to find that of God in everyone”. In practice this means that Quakers have long campaigned against war and discrimination, believing in gender and racial equality and, in recent years, equal marriage.

As Quakers we seek a direct experience of the divine rather than one mediated by a person in authority. Our form of worship helps nurture this direct encounter. What we refer to as ‘worship’ may be experienced at any time, in any place – “alone on the hills or in the busy daily life - we may find God, in whom we live and move and have our being... in a meeting held in the Spirit... there is a giving and receiving between its members, with or without words, that may become a wider vision and a deeper experience.” (Extract from Quaker Faith & Practice 2:11)

We see the divine as a living reality within ourselves and, as such, Quakers do not place their faith in outward acts of ritual or the recitation of creeds. Quakers believe that everyone is equal and our worship reflects this principle. When you come to a Quaker Meeting you will notice that we have no clergy and we sit in a circle facing each other.